


Bones in the Attic

by sailtheplains



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 19:05:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1719377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sailtheplains/pseuds/sailtheplains
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short story about a ghost.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>It was still a new, fresh snow. Perfect. He began to build. Legs, arms, ribs, head, little toes, big toes, piano fingers. Two hundred and six bones that the boy created from memory. He was good at sculpting new bones every winter night</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bones in the Attic

Far in the north, where the sky glimmers in more than just blue hues, there was a house. In the house, in the attic there was a little boy's bones. Well, he didn't use them anymore, so perhaps that meant they weren't really his bones anymore.He would stand at the window all day, all summer. Sunlight blotted through him, buttery, intangible, shimmers. But when night came, when the snow came back--he'd go out to play in the moonlight.

He must start as soon as possible and so when darkness covered the north in Nyx's shadow, he raced. He hurried. It was still a new, fresh snow. Perfect. He began to build. Legs, arms, ribs, head, little toes, big toes, piano fingers. Two hundred and six bones that the boy created from memory. He was good at skulpting new bones every winter night. He had it done in recond time. Then it was just a matter of escorting it around.

He had to be careful with it--snow was more fragile than skin, flesh and blood. Hot blood steamed on snow, sizzling it right away. Melted it into the dead grass underneath the dead snow (not that he had his blood anymore and it hadn't been his that was spilled outside) out by the trees. 

The boy was determined. He had a mission. And every night for ages, it seemed, he took his snow bones out behind the house where she was waiting. The boy's mother was long dead but always sat, chained to a big Ironwood tree. While his bones had collected dust in the attic, her bones were half-buried by the tree. She never spoke to him. She always looked at her bones. He could not remember why his bones were in the attic and hers were outside but it didn't really matter to him much.

His fingers were ice and snow now, carefully digging into the ground with a stick. It took him many winters to pull up her bones, separating them, freeing them from the clutching frozen earth. It was a crystal clear, starry night, bitterly cold when he freed her last bone. He looked at her.  
She looked back at him and then down at her bones. 

The boy knelt down. The second set of snow bones took less time to make with solid fingers. He presented it to his mother, smiling.   
Snow bones, just for her. Like little racing cars at Christmas. A sweater on his birthday ( _when was his birthday?_ ), he gestured to the glittery, sparkling snow bones. Stardust and moonlight reflected upon it, he could see the light shining as a prism on his mother's ghostly face.

The two snow skeletons picked up his mother's bones. The boy managed to get the door open with a careful twist. His fingers fell apart but the door opened. The house was so quiet and still. It sat empty as it had for years. The boy did not really remember the day his Death had happened. He just recalled his father pushing him into the attic and telling him to stay. 

_Where was Papa, anyway? Shouldn't they find him and make him some snow bones?_

His mother touched his little arm. She did not tell him that his father was in the fireplace in the basement. That was a dark place, now. His snow arm fell apart under her fingers, beginning to melt already. Upstairs they went and into the attic. They arranged her bones next to his.

All the snowbones fell off. They were plain again, without their glittering, sparkling mantles. 

_...can we go now?_ the little boy looked up at her.

She smiled and nodded. He hadn't noticed before, but the gash in her throat was full of glittering snow. She took his tiny hand.

They died again together.


End file.
